SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JULY 2013

                                                     

1 July  2013: Giving a big boost to vanishing tigers, the Maharashtra government approved the Koka Wildlife Sanctuary, 20km from Bhandara. The 92.34 sq km protected area is hardly 10km from New Nagzira and Nagzira wildlife sanctuaries and will act as a gene pool for tigers and wildlife. The proposed sanctuary includes 29 compartments with a total sanctuary area comes to 92.34 sq km. Koka has huge potential for sustaining flagship species such as tigers and panthers. The sanctuary will be an extension of already existing New Nagzira and Nagzira wildlife sanctuaries. In future, the area will be treated as buffer zone of proposed Nagzira-Navegoan Tiger Reserve. Link: http://www.nagzira.com

2 July 2013: Today's midnight launch of IRNSS-1 A (Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System),will enable India to have its own navigational satellite and its own GPS technology. The satellite is one of the seven satellites constituting the IRNSS network which will also provide better disaster management. It was launched from Sriharikota by Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL (PSLV-XL) which is a four-stage rocket powered by solid fuel (Hydroxyl-terminated-poly-butadiene) and liquid propellants (unsymmetrical Dimethyl-hydrazine-hydrate and 25 percent of Nitrogen tetroxide for second stage and Mono-methyl-hydrazine and mixed Oxide Nitrogen for fourth stage. Link: http://www.isro.org

3 July 2013: Researchers at the Institute de Biologia Evolutiva in Spain have made the most comprehensive catalogue of great-ape genome diversity ever, offering insight into the primate evolution. The catalogue shows chimpanzees are much more genetically complex than humans. Researchers sequenced a total of 79 great apes, including Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas and Orangutans, as well as seven apes. Chimpanzees and Bonobos remain humans' closest living relatives, splitting off from humanity about 5 million years ago. The findings also settle a hot debate over the relationships among the four chimpanzee subspecies. The new findings don't change man's position in the evolutionary history of mankind involving primates. Link: http://www.ibe.upf-csic.es

4 July  2013: Researchers from the University of Leeds, UK, have found that in the last decade, the Earth's spin has missed a beat, three times. These seemingly random blips cause days to temporarily stretch and shrink. Richard Holme of the University of Liverpool, UK, looked at 50 years of GPS and astronomical data to find out that in recent years our planet's spin has stuttered three times,in 2003, 2004, and 2007. The jumps interrupt the longer-term changes by a fraction of a millisecond, and last several months before going back to normal. The researchers from the University of Leeds says that we need to rethink the dynamics of the Earth's core in the light of these new findings regarding Earth's spin.This article was published in Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

5 July 2013: Green Chemistry was this year's theme at the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting which was concluded in Lake Constance, the picturesque town on Germany. Under graduate and post graduate students - from 80 countries participated with 35 scientists, all Nobel Prize winners. Lake Constance hosted 22 students from India, sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology and the DFG (German Research Foundation). Lindau meet addressed and discussed renewable energy sources - solar cells, photosynthesis, photobiological hydrogen production and catalytic production of renewable fuels. And other topics like Climate change. Link: http://www.lindau-nobel.org

6 July  2013: 'Team Rat', a 25-member international team of scientists have braved harsh Antarctic conditions of South Georgia to get rid off rats that were wiping out rare bird populations. South Georgia is one of the world's last great wilderness areas and amongst the wildlife on the island are 90% of the world's Antarctic fur seals and half the world's elephant seals. Four species of penguins nest on the island, including King Penguins with around 400,000 breeding pairs. The team led by professor Tony Martin, made 1,000 flights over the Antarctic island to bait 70% of the island's rat-infested areas, five times larger than any other rodent eradication project ever undertaken. Link: http://www.sght.org

7 July  2013: Today marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Mars rover, Opportunity, which was launched on July 7, 2003. Opportunity landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A), also part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission, touched down on the other side of the planet. While Spirit became immobile in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, Opportunity remains active as of 2013, having already exceeded its planned activity by 9 years, 95 days (in Earth time). Mission highlights included finding extramartian meteorites such as Meridiani Planum, and over two years studying Victoria crater. It reached Endeavour crater in 2011.Link: http://science.nasa.gov

8 July  2013: Yahoo which now owns AltaVista, the first searchable, full-text database of a large part of the World Wide Web, decided to close it, today. AltaVista was founded in 1995 by Digital Equipment Corporation.It was once one of the most popular search engines, but it lost ground with the rise of Google and was purchased in 2003 by Yahoo!, which retained the brand but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine. AltaVista was publicly launched on December 15, 1995. It was based on the original idea of Paul Flaherty, a researcher at Digital Equipment Corporation. The name AltaVista was chosen in relation to the surroundings of their company at Palo Alto. Link: http://www.altavista.com

9 July  2013: A baby boy has been born to a couple in the USA through a revolutionary IVF technique, that enables doctors to detect chromosome defects, even at womb. The technique, developed by British scientists from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre will tremendously help in improving the success rate of IVF cycles. Until recently, such abnormalities have been hard to detect as they do not affect the appearance of embryos under the microscope. The new approach can identify embryos with the correct number of chromosomes and may cut the cost of embryo screening. It also improves IVF success rates by around 30%. Link: http://oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk

10 July  2013: Death Valley's record temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius), the hottest ever measured on Earth, was set exactly 100 years ago today. For decades, scientists debated whether El Azizia, Libya, or the Death Valley in eastern California desert had the definitive claim to the hottest place on Earth. An international meteorology committee was tasked with investigating the competing claims, but their efforts were disrupted by a revolution in Libya. In 2011, the Libyan scientist, Kahlid Ibrahim El Fadli's measurement declared Death Valley as the hottest-known place on Earth, with the record-setting temperature, marked on July 10, 1913. Link: http://www.pbs.org

11 July  2013: French researchers have made a new type of atomic clock that can measure time more accurately. The new device called Optical Lattice Clock, would only lose just one second in every 300 million years.Currently, atomic clocks are used to count the seconds, but the new clocks proved to be more precise in tests and offered a better system for defining the second. Just as a clock uses the swing of a pendulum to measure intervals of time, an atomic clock uses the "vibrations" of atoms to measure time. In earlier atomic clocks, microwaves were used to make the atoms oscillate. But in the new ones, light is used. The finding is published in Nature Communications. Link: http://www.nature.com

12 July  2013: Scientists have discovered a second 'blue planet' in the Universe, although this one is decidedly inhospitable and unlikely to support life. "Blue Planet" is the nickname of Earth as it appers blue in photographs taken from space. Planet HD 189733b lies some 63 light years beyond our Solar System in the constellation Vulpecula. It has a deep cobalt blue colour according to data gathered by the Hubble space telescope, but its azure hue is not due to water but drops of liquid glass. It is the first time that scientists have been able to calculate the visible colour of an "exoplanet" beyond our own Solar System. The planet is a gas giant with temperatures 1,000C or higher. Link: http://iopscience.iop.org

13 July  2013: The US military has unveiled one of its most-advanced humanoid robots known as Atlas, which was created to assist in future emergency situations. The 1.9-meter tall, 150-kg Atlas robot, built by Boston Dynamics, is funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).The Atlas also boasts 28 hydraulically-actuated degrees of freedom, two hands, arms, legs, feet as well as an articulated sensor head that employs laser beams to measure distances. DARPA also wants to demonstrate that robots can be made to use tools from screwdrivers to fire trucks, and that robots can be supervised by people who aren't trained to operate robots. Link: http://www.darpa.mil

14 July  2013: In a world first, Japanese scientists have grown human liver tissue from stem cells, paving way for alleviating the critical shortage of donor organs. Takanori Takebe and Hideki Taniguchi at Yokohama City University showed the generation of vascularised and functional human liver from human induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs) by transplantation of in vitro grown liver buds. The study demonstrates a proof-of-concept that organ bud transplantation offers an alternative approach for treating organ failure by generating artificial organ and also that liver bud formation can be mimicked in vitro. The study was published in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

15 July  2013: The Hubble space telescope has discovered a new moon orbiting Neptune, NASA has confirmed. Designated S/2004 N 1, this is the 14th known moon to circle the giant planet. It also appears to be the smallest moon in the Neptunian system, measuring just 20 km across, completing one revolution around Neptune every 23 hours. It is so small that the Voyager spacecraft failed to spot it in 1989 when it passed close by Neptune and surveyed the planet's system of moons and rings. It was discovered by US astronomer Mark Showalter while studying rings around Neptune.The new Neptunian moon is roughly 100 million times dimmer than the faintest star. Link: http://hubblesite.org

16 July  2013: A satellite has detected that 300 billion tonnes of ice is being lost every year from the Antarctic and Greenland glaciers, dramatically increasing sea levels around the world. The satellite that detected the melting is Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). Dr Bert Wouters and his team compared nine years of satellite data from the GRACE mission with reconstructions of about 50 years of mass changes to the ice sheets. The findings underscore the need for continuous satellite monitoring of the ice sheets to better identify and predict melting and the corresponding sea-level rise. The study is published in Nature Geoscience. Link: http://www.csr.utexas.edu

17 July  2013: Wild life Conservation and Agro- Rural Development Foundation, a voluntary organisation and International Veterinary Students' Association (India) have started a councelling centre in Nagpur for veterinary students with the aim of helping bright students from poor families. The center will help the students with processes like international education, training, research, scholarships and fellowships, passport and visa, reference letter and so on. This year, five students of Nagpur Veterinary College have been sent to USA for their higher education. Students who want help can contact indiaivsa@gmail.com or ivsaindia@hotmail.com. Link: http://ivsa.org

18 July  2013: Scientists from Aix-Marseille University in France, have discovered the largest viruses ever discovered, called Pandoraviruses. The name comes from the myth of the 'Pandora's Box'. The virus was first discovered by Dr. Jean-Michel Claverie from sediment off the coast of Las Cruces, Chile. Second virus of the same kind was found by the scientists in a pond in Melbourne, Australia. The strain found in Chile is called Pandoravirus salinus while that found in Australia is called Pandoravirus dulcis. The new giant viruses are visible with light microscope, being a full micrometer while typical viruses are maybe 20 to 300 nanometers. The study is published in Science. Link: http://www.sciencemag.org

19 July  2013: An international team of scientists has discovered a new class of white blood cells that play a critical role as the first line of defense against harmful microbial infections. The discovery of these white blood cells, found in human lung and gut tissues, may lead to better design of vaccines and targeted immuno-therapies for dieseases such as pneumonia caused by infectious microbes. T cells are immune cells that circulate around our bodies to scan for cellular abnormalities and infections.The scientists identified a new subset of DCs (named CD11b+ DCs), which are essential for activating this response. The study is published in the journal Immunity. Link: http://www.cell.com

20 July  2013: Biologists from the Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and Tübingen-based Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology have described a tiny new species of nematode from Fukushima province, Japan, and named it after the German theoretical physicist Max Planck. The new nematode, called Pristionchus maxplancki, is the first species to carry the name of the Max Planck. It is a microscopic threadworm belonging to the genus Pristionchus. The nematode Pristionchus maxplancki which is only 1 mm long, can change the shape of its mouth depending on its nourishment. The paper published in Zoological Science. Link: http://www.bioone.org

21 July 2013: European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, captured images of a gigantic coronal hole hovering over the Sun's north pole. Coronal holes are dark, low density regions of the sun's outermost atmosphere, the corona. They contain little solar material, have lower temperatures, and therefore, appear much darker than their surroundings. Coronal holes are a typical feature on the sun, though they appear at different places and at different times of the sun's activity cycle. The activity cycle is currently ramping up toward Solar Maximum, predicted for late 2013. During this portion of the cycle, the number of coronal holes decreases. Link: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov

22 July 2013: Sunetra Gupta, an India-born chemist and physicist has joined the big league of female scientists like Marie Curie in a first-of-its-kind art exhibition at the prestigious Royal Society in London.  Gupta, who was born in Kolkata and is now a professor at Oxford University, is among the "Women in Science Portrait Exhibition", the greatest female fellows of the Royal Society. Her main area of interest is the evolution of diversity in pathogens like those that are responsible for malaria, influenza and bacterial meningitis. Gupta has a parallel career as a novelist and wrote her first fiction in Bengali. She is also an accomplished translator of the poetry by Tagore. Link: http://royalsociety.org

23 July 2013: Members of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project signed a Master Agreement today to collaborate on the development of a next-generation astronomical facility. Members of the collaboration include the California Institute of Technology, University of California, the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and institutions supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Construction of TMT is planned to begin in April 2014 and TMT is scheduled to begin scientific operations in 2022 on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Link: http://www.tmt.org

24 July 2013: The genome of one of the world's key commercial crops, the oil palm, has been sequenced. The plant's oil is used in many food and household products, but has caused controversy because large areas of rainforest have been cleared to make way for plantations. Through deciphering the crop's DNA, researchers have identified the genes that could help to produce a more sustainable crop.The oil from palms has a wide variety of uses and is found in food, soaps and shampoos and biofuels. But as demand for the product has grown, rainforests, particularly those in South East Asia, have suffered. The work is published in Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

25 July 2013: Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist and x-ray crystallographer helped discover the structure of DNA (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) but controversially missed out on the Nobel prize. Born on July 25, 1920 in London, Rosalind Franklin was the second child and eldest daughter of her parents who belonged to an affluent British Jewish family. Franklin's scientific work lead to X-ray diffraction images of DNA which resulted in the discovery of the DNA double helix. Besides this Franklin's studies also helped in the understand the molecular structures of RNA, viruses, coal and graphite. In April 1958, at the age of 37, Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer. Link: http://www.sdsc.edu

26 July 2013: An Ariane 5 rocket takes off at the French and European spaceport Guyana Space Centre, near Kourou in French Guiana, today. The rocket carried two satellites; Alphasat, a telecommunication satellite, and Insat-3D, a meteorological satellite, India's advanced weather satellite Insat-3D. Though it had developed some anomalies after the launch, it was corrected these immediately. The satellite has now been successfully placed in a geosynchronous orbit. According to Indian Space Research Organisation's statement, Insat-3D has moved towards its final geostationary orbit and its instruments were switched on August 8, 2013, which are running smoothly. Link: http://www.isro.org

27 July  2013: UK scientists at European Space Agency (ESA) have designed a concept mission to land astronauts on Mars by 2021 , twelve years before NASA expects to send a manned mission to the Red Planet. The plan envisages a three-person crew journeying to Mars aboard a small two-part craft. NASA says they will get on Mars at the earliest by 2033. According to professor Tom Pike, the leader of the London team, the trip would be the next major step for mankind in space and create a Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for the 21st Century. The landing on Mars will be an extreme ride. European Space Agency's Mars landing module will approach Mars at 22530.8kph. Link: http://sci.esa.int

28 July  2013: India is in the process of increasing its presence in the Arctic and at "Himadri", India's research lab located there. Last month, India scored a major diplomatic victory by managing to swing itself a seat on the Arctic Council as a permanent observer with support from countries like Norway which are primary members. The 'Seed Vault', buried deep inside a mountain on Longyerbyen is a testament to that effort. The 'Seed Vault', consists of millions of seeds from across the world, including India, to be stored for safe-keeping should a disease or disaster strike. The brainchild of conservationist Cary Fowler, the bank was built in 2008, by the Norway. Link: http://pib.nic.in

29 July 2013: Euclid, the 1.2 metre diameter telescope being built by the European Space Agency (ESA) will map the shape, brightness and 3D distribution of galaxies and looking back over three-quarters of the history of the universe. To be launched in 2020, Euclid's 1.2 metre diameter telescope is the most ambitious mission to date to map the geometry of the universe. Scientists hope it will help solve key problems in the understanding the roles played by dark matter and dark energy. Euclid is optimised to answer one of the most important questions in modern cosmology: why is the universe expanding, rather than slowing down due to gravitational attraction. Link: http://sci.esa.int

30 July 2013: Within three years, a telescope as big as a shoe box and weighing just about two kg will be installed on the moon. The images taken by the lunar telescope will be open to all educators, researchers and the general public in a pioneering experiment to democratize access to space exploration. The world's first mission to the Moon's south pole will take place in 2016. The International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) and Moon Express will be both scientific and commercial and the goal is to deliver the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) aboard a Moon Express robotic lander. The second moon mission will be to the lunar South Pole. Link: http://www.iloa.org

31 July 2013: The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is going to launch a new Supercomputer. The Supercomputer will connect all the laboratories of CSIR  located in Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Srinagar, Chennai, Chandigarh, and Nagpur. The Supercomputer will be located at India's first ever big data science institute, the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore. The supercomputer will have a speed of 360 tera flops, which will make it the fourth fastest supercomputer in the country and will deal with data intensive scientific discovery, which has come out as the fourth paradigm of science. Link: http://www.cdac.in